BY HERBERT DOCENA
MADRID — The US-convened donors' conference on Iraq opened on October 23 amid questions about US$4 billion in Iraqi oil revenues which the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) could not account for. As the US began pleading for up to $36 billion in reconstruction funds, the main question for most of the potential donors' representatives was not "How much are we giving?" but "Where have all those billions gone?".
The British charity Christian Aid began the day by distributing reports which allege that up to $4 billion of the funds that have been transferred to the CPA after the war "has effectively disappeared into a financial blackhole."
In addition to the $1 billion leftover from the UN Oil for Food program before the war, the CPA should have received $1.5 billion in post-war oil revenues as well as $2.5 billion in seized assets from the Saddam Hussein regime. "Yet, incredibly, these billions of dollars have never been publicly accounted for", Christian Aid said.
The agency has been hounding the CPA and the UN to shed light on the expenses but has not been given any answers. It quoted one senior diplomat as saying, "We have absolutely no idea how the money has been spent... I wish I knew, but we just don't know."
In an interview at the press centre here, Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid said CPA head Paul Bremer, who attended the conference along with around 100 Iraqi delegates, was very agitated by the organisation's revelations. "Now they don't even want to answer reporters' questions about our allegations", Nutt said.
As the negotiations were underway, questions surrounding the missing billions did not help allay potential donors' misgivings about giving funds to the US-led occupation. European Union external commissioner Chris Patten said the US needs to account for the missing funds before it can persuade others to give more.
Already, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been trying to lower expectations about the total amount that will be raised. It probably was not very reassuring for him that, while 58 countries participated, only 17 sent senior or high-ranking officials. One out of four participants were Madrid-based ambassadors assigned to drop by. France and Germany sent low-level bureaucrats.
Billing it as a "moment of hope" for Iraq, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the conference. He argued that while he looks forward to the day when the Iraqis are finally granted back their sovereignty, "the start of reconstruction cannot be deferred to that day". On behalf of the US, he pressed the donor countries "to give and give generously". Non-US representatives pledged $13 billion, well below the $36 billion that the World Bank estimates is required for Iraq's "reconstruction".
Meanwhile, as the day closed, around 2000 workers and students gathered in downtown Madrid to protest against the US-led occupation of Iraq. "This conference is a sham", said Hugo Casteli, one of those who marched. "It is to justify spending money for American and Spanish corporations while claiming that the money is for Iraqi people."
Iraq must be rebuilt, Casteli said, and the Iraqi people must be given all the help needed, "but it must be paid for by the Americans, since they were responsible for the destruction".
Ornella Sangiovanni, an Italian with the Baghdad-based International Occupation Watch Centre, said she came all the way to Madrid to ask governments not to donate any money to Iraq for as long as the occupation forces have not been withdrawn.
Christian Aid's revelations, she said, prove that there can be no transparency as long as the US calls the shots. This donors' conference, Sangiovanni said, could only signal the move from a unilateral to a multilateral corporate invasion of Iraq.
Chanting "Robbers not donors!" and "Resistance not terrorism!", the protesters waved banners that read, "We are the United Nations without the United Nations", "Donation=Domination", "Bush, pirate and beggar, out!" and "Another world is possible!". With the Spanish government having pledged $300 million to the conference, the protesters shouted "$300 million for pension, not for the occupation!".
As the protesters marched up one of Madrid's busy but narrow avenues, a long single-file of Spanish riot police also marched beside them, on the sidewalk. As many as 5000 police were mobilised to secure the conference. The protesters and the police converged at the historic Plaza del Sol. Above, a police helicopter hovered.
"They're passing themselves off as the good guys who are kind enough to give money to the Iraqis", protester Nevenka Franisch said with indignation. "They've been blackmailing people by making them feel guilty about not giving money to those needy Iraqis, when in fact it's them who will benefit."
Franisch, who is normally reluctant to join demonstrations, said she decided to join the march because she was outraged that the Iraqis are being made to pay for what others destroyed. "Nobody has the right to rob people after killing them", Franisch said.
[Herbert Docena works with the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and the Baghdad-based International Occupation Watch Centre. Visit ]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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